In Another Time and Place
by cockycute
Summary: Birkhoff thinks that his love for Nikita had always been unrequited, but little does he know that she once loved him too.


Birkhoff

Unrequited love has never been my style, but something about Nikita just got me. I remember the first day that I met her. She was dragged in, high as a kite, completely out of it, everyone else just saw a pathetic junkie, but I saw strength in her eyes. Inner strength was always a quality that I admired in other people, and it was definitely something that I wish I had in myself. I can be a coward and for me, self-preservation would always win out over loyalty eventually, no matter how much I wanted to protect the person I was betraying. Physically, I was and still am a total weakling, especially in comparison to all of the other trained agents, and the only thing that stopped me from being completely useless to division was my mind, but I've never been strong, either physically or mentally, so when I noticed the one quality in her that I would've given anything to have myself, I was drawn to her like bugs are drawn to light: I knew that this attraction wasn't good for me, and in the end I would inevitably get hurt, but I was powerless to fight it.

On the first day of training, we were paired up together to spar because we were both small- around the same height and neither one of us was particularly athletic for obvious reasons. A then-recruit who later became a cleaner taught us the moves, and once we got the hang of them we sparred for a while, pretty evenly matched, with Nikita embarrassingly having the slight upper hand. She knocked me on my back and straddled me before she bent over me and gave me a kiss. When she broke apart from me, I blinked a couple of times to get my bearings back and she laughed at my dazed expression, then she stood back up and held out her hand to me. I took it and she clapped me on the back.  
"We should fight more often, Nerd." She said. "You're the only one that I've ever been able to beat." I laughed, my cheeks pink with embarrassment. "Yeah, well, you shouldn't count on being able to beat me again. I've got some mad skills that you might not want to be on the receiving end of. I was holding back this time, but next time, I just might not be able to stop myself from opening big can of whup-ass on you."  
"Mad skills, huh? Well, I guess we're gonna see about that during our next fight." She smiled.  
"I'll look forward to it."  
"See you tomorrow Nerd." Nikita smiled and waved at me as she walked away. That day might have been the last time that I would ever be truly happy. I was starting to fall in love with her, and I think that she might have been starting to love me too.

Nikita

I remember the first day that I met Seymour Birkhoff, before he assumed his mask of prickliness and conceit. He was sweet, and could always bring a smile to my face. Sometimes I think that that Birkhoff might still be hiding inside of him, under all of the arrogance and sarcasm and defense mechanisms built to keep people out that he developed over the years at Division. I've always wondered what had happened to him to change him. Maybe it was due to the isolation of being trained separately after Division realized the extent of his skills, maybe it was the pressure of being Division's sole computer hacker, maybe it was my increasingly obvious infatuation with Michael, but no matter what it was, something changed Birkhoff from a sweet, geeky, socially awkward computer nerd to a conceited, sarcastic, antisocial hardened computer hacker. In some ways though, I'm glad he changed, because if he had stayed that shy, timid, awkward boy, I might have fallen in love with him, and that would have been used against me. He thinks that he still has a crush on me, but I know that it's just residual attraction from our first meeting because he's not capable of love anymore. He destroyed that part of himself when he built a wall around his heart. Whether the original Birkhoff is trapped inside or not is a mystery, and to protect myself, it's one I've never tried to figure out.


End file.
